Wake Up! is an amazing collaboration between Asian Kung-Fu Generation and Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra, two of my favorite bands out of Japan. The track after that has Mongol.800 as the featured band/vocalist playing with them, and after that comes one featuring 10-Feet as their musical partner. Let’s face it, Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra has been around forever, and they have created some world-class collaborations in that time. Enjoy!
Three things come to mind when I hear the word Supergirl these days; one TV show, and two variations on the same song. The new iteration on the Supergirl TV show from CBS looks kick ass, as you can tell from the first video. Kara Zor-El looks to be in full control, except for when she isn’t. They certainly don’t need any encouragement from me, but how can I keep quiet when they are setting up for such an amazing start?
When we drop into the music, I have loved the Reamonn song for a few decades now, definitely one of my favorites. If you don’t know them, Reamonn was a German pop rock band headed up by Irishman Rea Garvey. His hit off the first album was Supergirl, which made the top 10 in Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Austria. For the most part, people in North America (or much of anywhere else outside of central Europe centered on Germany) only heard the track as an import, and it didn’t receive much air play. But it should have; it was amazing!
Just recently it has been covered and re-released by Anna Naklab featuring Alle Farben & YOUNOTUS. This version is every bit as intense as the original; enjoy them all! Alle Farben, Anna Naklab, and You Not Us are all German artists, singing this world-class song in English. Which is pretty much how it started off, after all.
From the band Cocoro Auction comes the song Outburst of Crickets Chirping, which is pretty much a coming of age movie compressed into a few moments and given a light, J-Pop soundtrack. The next song is Summer of Phantom, a variation on the same theme, and equally worth watching/listening to. The final track gives us their 2012 release Nazonokusa, back when they were more rock and less pop.
As a general rule, I am not in favor of having government agencies in control of music. One exception to that (there are others) is the series VOAs Beyond Category. In this presentation, we get to listen to the Jazz of John Pizzarelli, and learn a bit more about him and his musical heritage. The series has some of the most amazing Jazz and Blues artists playing today, and for once I am quite happy to have my tax dollars going to a project. Don’t stop at just one; explore the depth and range of this Voice of America show, they have a lot to offer.
The band Unison Square Garden is from Japan, and they have been cranking out the rock for a while. The first track here is from their 5th Album “Catcher In The Spy”, called Heaven and Hell, released in 2014.
The second track came out about 5 weeks ago, and is the short version of Sugar Song and Bitter Step, Short Version in Japan apparently meaning they will give you one verse, and if they are feeling generous half a chorus. This isn’t the first time I have posted an official short version Japanese song on this site, for Anime OP or ED tracks are usually 90 seconds long, and worth every moment of it. And since it turns out this song IS an Anime ED track, specifically for the Anime Blood Blockade Battlefront, track 2.5 is the Anime version of it. Which also could explain why such a kick ass Rock band recorded such a Pop tune; they needed to land that Anime contract to get the word out about the majority of their body of work. At least, I hope that was their justification, and they didn’t just go belly-up into full-tilt Pop on us.
For the third track we jumped all the way back to the live version of their 2012 song Out Of Place Hummingbird. As always, the actual song titles are the best guesses of a guy with a very limited vocabulary in that language, but the music needs no translation, it is just that good.
This time around we are going to check out a few tunes from the band Good On The Reel, who released their 7th mini album just a few weeks ago. The first track is The King that was not accustomed to Shichiyo, posted this past May, the second is from last November and their 6th mini album, while the third is from their 2013 4th mini album Marivuron of Four Seasons. Then just one more, older still, from their previous record company and released in 2011. I think this band shows a lot of promise, so I wanted to make you aware of them so you could make up your own mind.